50's Guild wiring schematics?

[valcotone]

hi guys,

Does anyone have a wiring schematic (showing pot values and any other caps, etc) for 1950s Guilds like X175, CE-100DP, et?

Thanks!

 

[fronobulax]

Do any of these help? They have no date information and a couple of LTGer's have compared them to their factory originals and found a few discrepancies, but they might be good enough for your purposes.

 

[valcotone]

fronobulax, Thanks for the link... those schematics look to be for the later models with the master volume. I'm hoping to find accurate ones for the 50's models... Thanks again!

 

[Darryl Hattenhauer]

This sounds like a job for our own Capnjuan, Billy D Light, and Walter Broes. You can search those names.

 

[valcotone]

Calling all 50's Guild wiring harness gurus! :lol:

I'm looking through the f-hole of my '59 X-175 and the volume pots look normal, but the tone pots are dual (stacked) pots. Both tone pots have a .02uF red+black Astron cap plus a smaller ceramic disc cap. What's going on in there? Is this stock wiring?

Does anyone have a wiring diagram or schematic for this guitar?

I notice, on the neck pickup especially, that rolling back the tone pot 1/2 way actually increases the volume a little and fattens up the tone... rolling it full on thins out the tone (and it's brighter of course). This is a mystery to me (maybe it's normal on the X-175)???????

Is there a benefit to rewiring to get rid of the extra ceramic caps? BillyD says there is on his site, but I'd love to learn more. I checked the switch and there are no caps on there.

This guitar doesn't seem to have quite as much output as my '60 CE-100DP Capri so I'm wondering...

Billy D? Walter?

Also, the neck and bridge pickups were out of phase, so I pulled the neck pickup out and did the magnet-flip so they are in phase now. I took photos along the way and can post them if somebody needs them. The Franz pickup construction is pretty cool.

Thanks!

 

[Walter Broes]

Valcotone, yep, sounds like what you have is original. I have one guitar that came to me that way, and the first thing I did was rip the original harness out...

What I put in my Starfire and 59 Manhattan is basically a Gibson harness with the wiring on both volume knobs reversed ("decoupled"), and 500K Audio pots (CTS's).

I think I still have a drawing of that in my PC somewhere, let me know if you want me to dig it up.

 

[valcotone]

Thanks Walter.

What differences in tone, output, and frequency response did you notice with the Gibson-style harness vs. the original Guild harness?

Did you use 500K or 250K pots? I wonder if these low-ohm ~5K pickups might benefit from 250K pots?

I'm pretty familiar with the Gibson way of wiring things, that's why the Guild harness is such a mystery. :lol:

 

[Walter Broes]

500K, but I like things bright. I might have a 250K tone pot of the SF, but I honestly don't remember.

I honestly didn't give the Guild harness enough time for an honest comparison, but I've never been one for "options", "alternative wiring schemes" or any of that, I'm glad if my sweaty paws can find the right control knob on stage, so I don't want any funny business with the wiring I have to remember or think about.

I did get very used to the way the controls are laid out on a Guild, so much so that I'm lost on a Gibson whenever someone shoves one in my hands.

 

[valcotone]

Here's a website showing the Franz pickups in detail --> http://www.kilback.net/franz

I just took all these photos last night when flipping the magnets in the neck pickup.

Sample pic:

 

[danerectal]

Calling all 50's Guild wiring harness gurus! :lol:

I'm looking through the f-hole of my '59 X-175 and the volume pots look normal, but the tone pots are dual (stacked) pots. Both tone pots have a .02uF red+black Astron cap plus a smaller ceramic disc cap. What's going on in there? Is this stock wiring?

Does anyone have a wiring diagram or schematic for this guitar?

I notice, on the neck pickup especially, that rolling back the tone pot 1/2 way actually increases the volume a little and fattens up the tone... rolling it full on thins out the tone (and it's brighter of course). This is a mystery to me (maybe it's normal on the X-175)???????

That sounds like a treble-bass balance control. I have noticed that anomaly in amplifier circuits. When you turn past the mid-point on tone controls (bass, treble or otherwise), one can experience some strange activity with respect to volume. Just a hypothesis...

 

[billydlight]

My Main CE has the lead coming off the switch right to the jack. No volume or tone at all. I did that when the pots started going bad and I was not using them any way. Other wise I have not seen the stacked pot thing but that don't mean it aint out there. I would scrap it and go with a standard gibson layout or bypass altogether. But thats just me. :shock:

 

[Default]

The Astrojet I have was mis-wired at the factory. The first knob is supposed to be the master volume, but it acts more like a blend control that a master volume. It has 4 knobs and three switches and I still can't figure out how the damned thing works. I tell you though, if you like bright, that thing will cut through any size band. With the treble boost on, it's like a shower of icepicks and razor blades.

 

[valcotone]

Just following up on this old thread. I opened up the '56 X-175 and lo and behold, there was a capacitor mounted right on the toggle switch (as Billy D. reported). It was a trip to actually see it... here are some shots. This is connected to the neck pickup lug on the switch to ground and drains off most highs from the neck and middle positions... I clipped one end and tie-wrapped it in place and it sounds WAAAAAAAY better of course.